


Make Like a Tree and Get Out of Here

by Lalalli



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Back to the Future II AU, Comedy, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 11:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12839844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lalalli/pseuds/Lalalli
Summary: “I thought you were talking to Fitz,” Jemma protests, moving to the car nevertheless.“I was talking to both of you!” Doc jumps into the driver’s seat and pushes some buttons on the dash. The numbers on the screen flash to 2017. “It concerns your daughter, Emmeline Fitzsimmons.”“Wait - our daughter?” Fitz turns to look at Jemma, who’s looking back at him with an equally flummoxed expression. “As in the daughter we have together?”*Written for Fitzsimmons Appreciation Week 2017Day 6: Future





	Make Like a Tree and Get Out of Here

**~1987 ~**

Fitz has only been away from his best friend for a week, but considering that he spent that week stuck in 1957, it feels like he spent three decades away from her. Of course, for Jemma, it only felt like three hours since she last saw Fitz (mostly because it had been three hours since she last saw him), so his enthusiastic embrace as soon as she steps foot on his driveway catches her a bit off guard.

“Wow. If skipping Mathletes practice makes you this happy, maybe you should skiv off more often,” Jemma jokes, patting his back awkwardly.

“You’ll never guess where I’ve been!” Fitz exclaims when he pulls back from her. “So I was at Doc’s and -”

“You’re right, I’m shocked,” Jemma talks over him, her voice flat. “You’re _never_ at Doc’s.”

“- in 1957!”

Jemma’s mouth clamps shut. “I’m sorry - I don’t think I heard you correctly - can you repeat that?”

Fitz rolls his eyes. “Yeah, it’s almost like you shouldn’t talk over me when -”

“Well maybe you should cut straight to your point instead of-”

“And now you’re interrupting me again when I’m _trying to explain_ -”

The roar of Doc’s chrome DeLorean interrupts both of them as it pulls into the driveway. “Oh, good!” Doctor Radcliffe exclaims as he jumps out of the driver’s seat. “You’re here.” He pulls a jug out of the backseat and starts pouring it into the gas tank. “Get in - we’ve got to go right away.”

Jemma looks between Fitz and Doc, her eyes wide with alarm. “Go where?”

“Not to where - to when!” He grabs Fitz’s shoulders and jerks him forward, fixing his panicked expression on Fitz’s face. “We need to stop something terrible from happening.”

Fitz’s face pales. He scrambles to get into the car.

Radcliffe turns to glare at Jemma. “Well, what are you waiting for? Didn’t you hear what I said?”

Jemma raises her eyebrows and points to herself. “Me?”

Radcliffe huffs impatiently. “Who else? C’mon - get in the car!”

“I thought you were talking to Fitz,” Jemma protests, moving to the car nevertheless.

“I was talking to both of you!” Doc jumps into the driver’s seat and pushes some buttons on the dash. The numbers on the screen flash to 2017. “It concerns your daughter, Emmeline Fitzsimmons.”

“Wait - our daughter?” Fitz turns to look at Jemma, who’s looking back at him with an equally flummoxed expression. “As in the daughter we have _together_?”

Doc rolls his eyes. “Who else would you have a daughter with?” He adjusts his sunglasses and shifts the gears. “Let’s ride.”

 

**~2017~**

Personal space has always been a foreign concept to Fitz and Simmons. They’ve never thought anything about leaning over each other’s shoulders at the library to compare answers to problem sets, about celebratory hugs at the arcade when Jemma beats Fitz’s high score on Paperboy, about leaning against each other when it’s late and Bobbi’s basketball game goes into overtime and all they want to do is sleep.

But now Jemma is hyper-aware of the warmth of Fitz’s chest against her back and his breath against her hair and his fingers around her wrist as they both duck behind a Redbox to avoid being spotted by their future selves. It’s ridiculously distracting considering that they’re in the _future_. Jemma should be having thoughts other than the repeated refrain of _He’s going to put a baby inside of me_.

Honestly, Jemma’s reaction to seeing the future version of herself with Fitz is the same as her reaction to 2017 in general: kind of underwhelmed. Knowing that progress is exponential, she assumed that 2017 would have flying cars and self-tying shoes. It’s actually mostly the same, except that everyone perpetually carries around paper coffee cups and sleek personal devices.

Similarly, the Fitzsimmons of the future look uncannily similar to the Fitzsimmons of 1987. Sure, they’ve both put on a bit of weight and the lines in their faces are etched a bit deeper, but just observing them walking next to each other, talking and gesturing animatedly, Fitz with his usual grumpy scowl and Jemma with her usual expression of fond exasperation, it’s impossible to tell that they’ve apparently made a baby together.

“We don’t look married,” Fitz whispers in Jemma’s ear, proving once again that they’re on the same wavelength.

Future Fitzsimmons walk into a grocery store together, and before Jemma can talk herself out of it, she grabs Fitz’s hand and pulls him along as she follows them.

“We’re supposed to be waiting for Doc by the car!” Fitz protests.

“If all we’re doing is waiting, then what’s even the point of us being here?” Jemma points out, pulling on his arm to crouch next to her behind a display of miniature decorative pumpkins.

They watch as Future Fitz attempts to sneak a box of Pop-Tarts into the cart while Future Jemma’s back is turned, rifling through bundles of kale. Jemma smiles and nudges Fitz with her elbow. “Looks like some things never change.”

Future Jemma turns back to the cart and, noticing the Pop-Tarts, rolls her eyes. She glances around them, checking to see that no one’s watching, then reaches over to Future Fitz and pinches his butt.

Jemma yelps, then immediately ducks back behind the display in case Future Jemma or Future Fitz turns to look. She looks at Fitz with wide eyes, mortified. “I just pinched your butt!”

Fitz peeks over the display. “Yeah, but -” He looks back at Jemma and shrugs. “I don’t really seem to mind.”

Jemma gapes at him. “This doesn’t bother you?”

“Not really.” Fitz frowns. “Wait. It bothers you?”

It’s a good thing Doc interrupts the conversation at that moment, scolding them for leaving the car, because Jemma has no idea what she would’ve said.

Because when she thinks about it, _bother_ is a strong word. It’s not bad. It’s just weird. She and Fitz aren't like that. Except for the parts where they are like that, like when they walk so close together that they occasionally jostle the other person, or like when Jemma nags Fitz to eat things that don’t come from vending machines, or like when Fitz pretends that helping Jemma with errands is a huge inconvenience, when really he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

But the physical affection thing. They don’t do that. Except for when they do.

But they definitely don’t pinch each other. Unless it’s the kind of pinching that occurs between friends, like when Jemma pinches the inside of Fitz’s elbow when he teases her or Fitz pinches Jemma’s ribs in retaliation for trying to tickle him. But Jemma would not ever pinch Fitz’s arse.

Even though, as she notes when following Fitz back to the car, he really does have a lovely arse.

 

**~1987~**

They don’t really get a chance to talk about it, not while they’re in 2017. There were other things to worry about, like finding Emmeline and convincing her not to accept the job offer from Hydra Inc. And when Emmeline rolled her eyes and told them they must be conspiracy theorists who were exaggerating the nefarious goals of Hydra, then they had to worry about knocking her out long enough for Jemma to impersonate her in the job interview so they could make sure that she bombed it so bad that Hydra would never express interest in her again. And then they had to worry about dropping off Emmeline at home and returning to 1987 without running into any other Future Fitzsimmons (a brood that apparently also included Emmeline’s two younger brothers).

But even though their future romantic relationship - and Jemma’s apparent unhappiness with the idea - wasn’t at the forefront of Fitz’s mind, it was still there, hovering over him like a cloud. So by the time Doc drops them off in Fitz’s driveway back in 1987, Fitz has stewed in his embarrassment and hurt enough that it’s turned into annoyance.

Jemma’s just standing there, staring at Fitz, which - if she doesn’t want to talk about it, that’s fine with him. “I assume you have to be getting home,” Fitz says, curt, at the same time Jemma blurts, “It doesn’t bother me.”

Fitz blinks. “Okay.”

Jemma looks down at her shoes. “It was just weird. You’re my best friend, you know?” Her mouth twists into a wry smile. “Maybe we just get so used to arguing with each other that we figure that we might as well go on arguing with each other for the rest of our lives.”

Fitz scowls. “So that’s the only way we’d ever end up together? If you _settle_ for me? Because God forbid-”

Jemma’s eyes snap back up to meet his. “What? That is _not_ what I was saying and you know -”

“- not like you’d, I don’t know, actually be _attracted_ to-”

“- always thought of marriage as being _romantic_ , but it’s not -”

“- glad to know you’re not opposed to marriages of _convenience_ -”

“- we’re going to carry on being the same as we are now except with _babies_ and _pinching_ and-”

“- not like it’s _inevitable_ \- go ahead and marry someone else, see if I care!”

“- just, for once in your life, just let me talk!”

Fitz’s mouth clamps shut. He glowers at Jemma. “Go ahead then. Talk.”

Jemma shifts on her feet. “I…” She closes her mouth, pressing her lips tightly together before trying again. “You…”

Fitz rolls his eyes. “That definitely clears -”

Jemma flings herself at him and then her mouth is on his, firm and insistent. Fitz stumbles backwards in surprise, reflexively bringing his hands to her hips to steady himself.

Jemma pulls away from him, taking a step back. Fitz’s arms fall back to his sides and when he looks at Jemma, her face is wide open, surprise and worry and defiance staring back at him. Fitz licks his lips, unsure of what to say because, honestly, he’s still incredibly confused about what’s happening.

When Fitz doesn’t say anything, Jemma deflates a bit, her shoulders slumping and chin tilting down. “I just thought -” She huffs in frustration. “I was just thinking about how they - we - were acting the same as how we always act, and at first I thought that meant that we didn’t - I mean, won’t - feel romantically towards each other. But then she pinched -” she flushes and tugs nervously on the hem of her shirt. “And it occurred to me that maybe if they do love each other and we’re the same way around each other the way they are around each other, maybe it means that we love each other _now_.” She bites her bottom lip and looks up at Fitz. “Does that make sense?”

“No,” Fitz admits without thinking. He scrunches his eyebrows, considering. “But it kind of sounds like you’re trying to say you love me.”

The corners of Jemma’s mouth twitch. “That we love each other, actually. But me loving you would be part of that, yes.”

Fitz wrinkles his nose. “You couldn’t have just said that?” He steps forward, returning his hands to her hips. “You’re the one who’s always complaining that I don’t cut straight to the point.”

Jemma rolls her eyes, putting her arms around his neck. “Well, if you don’t like my love confession, why don’t _you_ have a go at it then? See how easy it is,” she grumbles.

“I love you,” Fitz says immediately. “See? Easy. Straight to the point.”

Jemma leans up to kiss his lips, soft and brief. “That’s even straighter to the point.”

Fitz grins. “Is this a competition now? Because in that case -” He slides his hand into her hair and presses his lips to hers, kissing her warm and slow, as though they have the rest of their lives.

After all, they kind of do.

**Author's Note:**

> The original ending had Radcliffe returning to pick them up again because they accidentally caused Trump to become president. But then I figured that I should let Fitzsimmons have nice things.


End file.
